Notre Dame Spring Football Roster Preview — Defense

Farewell to the Old Guard

The offense has been examined previously, so now here’s a spring preview of how Notre Dame’s defensive roster looks like it will shake out for the 2025 season.

Position: Interior Defensive Line
Scholarship players: 10
Projected starters: Gabriel Rubio and Jared Dawson

Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Rubio became a starter slightly ahead of schedule, taking over in the 2024 College Football Playoff after Rylie Mills suffered a season-ending knee injury against Indiana. Now in his fifth year with the program, Rubio gets his chance to shine, most likely along with the Louisville transplant Dawson. Dawson is a sixth-year player who’s appeared in double-digit games each of the last three seasons and totaled career marks of 51 tackles, 14.0 TFLs and 9.0 sacks.

Behind those two is Donovan Hinish, younger brother of Kurt, Notre Dame’s former record holder for career games played (a record now held probably forever by Jack Kiser). Donovan, like Rubio, was thrust into a greater role than anticipated last season because of Howard Cross III’s late-season ankle injury. The younger Hinish totaled 35 tackles, 5.0 TFLs and 4.5 sacks as a redshirt sophomore. He’ll once again play a second-string role, alongside either Elijah Hughes, an undergrad transfer from USC, or Jason Onye. Onye appeared in just five games last year before sitting out the rest of the season for personal reasons, but is now listed on Notre Dame’s roster again. Both Hughes and Onye have limited production through two and four collegiate seasons, respectively.

Filling out the interior depth chart are redshirt sophomores Armel Mukam, Brenan Vernon and Devan Houston, redshirt freshman Sean Sevillano Jr. and true freshmen Davion Dixon, Gordy Sulfsted and Joseph Reiff. Of that group, Mukam and Sevillano seem to have a leg up on playing time next season, leaving former highly touted prospects Vernon and Houston as guys with make-or-break springs.

The key at this position is finding as much depth as possible. Defensive interior is a position that needs quality and quantity, but the upside at the top of the position was definitively higher in 2024 with Mills and Cross. So, the coaching staff’s approach on the interior this year needs to be making sure the quality of the 2025 backups is closer to the quality of the 2025 starters than was the quality of the 2024 backups to the 2024 starters.

Position: Defensive End
Scholarship players: 11
Projected starters: Boubacar Traore and Joshua Burnham

Would Boubacar Traore have usurped Jordan Botelho as a starting pass rusher last season? We’ll never know the answer since Traore entered the lineup after Botelho tore his ACL, and then Traore tore his own ACL shortly thereafter. But since those injury happened in late September, both guys have a decent chance to participate during spring ball and be close to full-go by fall camp. Still, in light of both players sustaining severe knee injuries, it’s reassuring that Bryce Young was thrust into duty as a true freshman and impressed quite a bit, so maybe he maintains a starting job while Traore spends the majority of 2025 getting back up to speed.

As for the other side of the line, Burnham had his best season to date as a redshirt sophomore in 2024, starting 10 of 14 appearances and logging 30 total tackles (6.5 for loss) and two sacks. He was limited for a stretch early in the season after suffering an ankle injury against Northern Illinois, but he’s gotten better year over year, and his senior season would be the ideal time to hit his peak.

Behind Burnham is true senior Junior Tuihalamaka. Both Burnham and Tuihalamaka were recruited as linebackers in the 2022 class but shifted to defensive end after putting on too much weight. Burnham seemed to take to the position change much better than Tuihalamaka, but necessity was the mother of invention for Tuihalamaka as he came into his own following the defensive end injuries last season. He posted 33 tackles, 6.0 TFLs, 3.0 sacks, two fumble recoveries and one interception in 2024, including an end-of-half fumble recovery after Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton was strip-sacked.

Rounding out the third/fourth-string on the edge are true sophomore Loghan Thomas and redshirt freshman Cole Mullins. Thomas almost had a memorable moment last season before his fumble return touchdown against Louisville was overturned on replay review. Still, the coaching staff burned his redshirt in 2024, which speaks to the confidence in him notwithstanding the injuries to Botelho and Traore that opened up playing time.

Making up the rest of the defensive ends are true freshmen Dominik Hulak and Christopher Burgess, Jr., a pair of three-stars who won’t arrive on campus until summer.

The bottom line for this position is that the top end of the room has a lot of potential between Traore, Young and Thomas, as well as plenty of experience between Botelho, Burnham and Tuihalamaka. The angst lies in whether the talent will quickly fulfill some of that potential in light of injuries, and whether there’s any more untapped promise in the vets.

Position: Linebacker
Scholarship players: 10
Projected starters: Drayk Bowen and Jaiden Ausberry

Consider it unlikely that Notre Dame goes back to starting three linebackers in its base defense, since secondary personnel remain such a strength AND new defensive coordinator Chris Ash is also a safeties coach. But the Irish have plenty of talented guys to choose from for those two starting spots.

The heir apparent to Jack Kiser — again, Notre Dame’s career leader in games played — is Drayk Bowen, who figures to have his helmet wired to talk to Ash mid-games. Bowen recorded 78 total tackles, 4.0 for loss, and one sack last year. He also forced a fumble against Ohio State that kept alive Notre Dame’s dying chances at a national title. Opposite him might be Ausberry, who totaled 58 tackles, 7.0 TFLs and two fumble recoveries last year, including one against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Ausberry has a knack for being around the ball, but that might not be enough to hold off true sophomore Kyngstonn Villiamu-Asa, a former five-star recruit who figures to be a dangerous pass-rushing linebacker. KVA recorded a solid freshman campaign last year, stunted only by a lower body injury that kept him out the end of the regular season and start of the College Football Playoff.

Beyond that top three is Jaylen Sneed, a true senior and another former five-star recruit who appeared in all 16 games last year and was playing his best football by season’s end. He’s another pass-rushing linebacker who falls victim to being a “tweener” in a defense that no longer utilizes the rover position.

Then there’s redshirt sophomore Preston Zinter and true freshman Madden Faraimo. Zinter appeared in every game last year, primarily on special teams, and finds himself in a difficult position behind so many talented players competing for precious snaps. He’s in danger of falling behind another in Faraimo, yet another five-star recruit who could make a splash as a true freshman à la Villiamu-Asa last season. If so, Zinter’s a top candidate to hit the transfer portal.

Rounding out the room are redshirt freshmen Kahanu Kia, Teddy Rezac and Bodie Kahoun and true freshman Ko’o Kia. Those are all developmental prospects who will have to bide their time at linebacker, and would probably have to do the same at defensive end if any began shifting there (as it looked like Kia might before leaving for his LDS mission trip after the 2021 season).

Position: Cornerback
Scholarship players: 8
Projected starters: Leonard Moore, Christian Gray, and DeVonta Smith

Don’t weep for what was; smile for what’s next. Benjamin Morrison is off to the NFL after only playing half of the 2024 regular season before a season-ending hip injury, and Jaden Mickey transferred to Cal-Berkely after an up-and-down two-and-a-half years in South Bend. But returning are Leonard Moore — the true-sophomore-to-be who looked like the next Morrison in the back half of 2024 — and Christian Gray.

Gray had a rough end to the 2024 season after getting the unenviable assignment of guarding Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith in the national championship. Nevertheless, Gray is still the guy who had the mental fortitude to respond to a rough game against USC with a game-sealing pick-six, and the guy who made a diving interception of Drew Allar to set up a game-winning field goal against Penn State in the Orange Bowl.

Joining Moore and Gray is Alabama transfer DeVonta Smith — unrelated to that other DeVonta Smith who just won a Super Bowl and gave Notre Dame fans nightmares in 2020 — who takes over Jordan Clark’s duties as the starting nickel.

Probably filling out the second string at corner are true sophomore Karson Hobbs and true freshmen Dallas Golden and Mark Zachary IV. Golden and Zachary are top-200 four-star recruits who could conceivably do to Gray what Gray did to Mickey last season, although neither freshman arrives on campus until the summer. And filling out the room is true freshman Cree Thomas, who enrolled early this spring, and Chance Tucker, a fifth-year player who missed all of last season after a fall ACL tear.

So long as position coach Mike Mickens continues working his magic at the back of the Irish defense, whatever else Chris Ash can contribute to the secondary coaching is just gravy.

Position: Safety
Scholarship players: 11
Projected starters: Adon Shuler and Jalen Stroman

Speaking of Ash, it will be interesting to see what he can do for a Notre Dame defense that has a bizarre track record at safety. For every Harrison Smith, Kyle Hamilton or Xavier Watts that reaches incredible heights at the position, the rest of the room always seems to leave something to be desired from a recruiting standpoint. Now that Watts heads to the NFL after two All-American seasons, it falls to redshirt sophomore Adon Shuler to assume the mantle.

Shuler will probably be paired with Stroman, a fifth-year transfer from Virginia Tech who missed all but one game last season with an injury. In his two seasons prior he totaled 98 tackles, two tackles for loss and four passes defended.

However, given that Stroman’s production isn’t outstanding — and he’ll miss the spring after a surgical procedure — it can’t be ruled out that he’ll get the same treatment as Northwestern transfer Rod Heard did last season. Heard was relegated to a bench role because of Shuler’s development, and it isn’t inconceivable that the same could be done to Stroman by any of Luke Talich, Kennedy Urlacher, Tae Johnson, Ben Minich or four-star early-enrollee JaDon Blair.

And, behind the returning contributors and the highly-touted Blair are redshirt freshman Taebron Bennie-Powell and three-star true freshmen Ethan Long, Anthony Sacca and Brandon Logan.

Even acknowledging that the transfer portal is always a stopgap for positions with holes, Ash and Mickens need to find at least two of the underclassmen at this position who can become viable starters next season. That’s because Stroman exhausts his eligibility after this year and Shuler could be a dark-horse early entrant in the 2026 NFL Draft.